[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 1995 Walt Disney produced the movie “Pocahontas” in the movie a Native American women sees white settlers coming over to land near their area so that they can get rich with the gold they believe is where Pocahontas’ tribe is. Later on in the movie Pocahontas meets John Smith, a white settler. At first they do not like each other, but after a while they learn to put aside their differences and what they believe to become friends and almost lovers.

Though John Smith and Pocahontas put aside their differences her tribe and the men that John Smith came with did not try to get along. and almost went to war with each other, but  because Pocahontas and John Smith put aside their differences and worked together to help each of their groups see eye to eye. They convinced each of their groups to put aside their differences and work together to start to achieve more than they would have if they wouldn’t have put aside their differences.

Though this version of Pocahontas is not fully true to real life it still shows that when you put aside differences you are able to achieve more than you would if you didn’t. The way that people put differences ahead of what is really important is the same as what Congress is doing today in the US. They are putting their political parties and their differences over working together and thinking of what will help make our country better than it already is.

What is the Problem with Congress and Political Parties

They are Causing more disagreements between people

Many times because of political parties the government has decided that they can’t cooperate with the other parties ideas and because of this the economy and most of our social status has changed and people are starting to think less highly at our government and have not liked what we have been seeing at the news.

We have been seeing more and more people thinking that they are higher than others and many have gone to extreme measures to put down the other parties beliefs. Some people have even gone so far as to try and hurt some of the other parties members. In an article from the New York Times  a man “was arrested Friday in the wave of mail bombs that have targeted critics of President Trump”. This man was trying to kill people just because they didn’t have the same views that he did. Just because someone doesn’t think the same way that you do that doesn’t mean that people should die because of it. Which proves that Political Parties have been recently causing more harm than good. 

The Government has had more Shutdowns Because of Political Parties

Since 1976 in the United States there has been a total of 20 government shutdowns ranging from a bunch of different reasons to why it had to shut down. Most of the time there is a good time gap between each of  the government shut downs. In 2018 although there was a total of 2 government shutdowns less than a month apart from each other. The two government shutdowns happened because government officials didn’t try to reason with each other and come to a compromise that everyone would agree with. So they had to resort to the government shutting down (to close up all government runned places) up to 3 days at a time so that everyone can regroup and they can come to an agreement. Though there have been many government shutdowns throughout the years. The more recent government shutdowns  have been mostly about both parties not coming to an agreement resulting in our country not being able to get things done in the White House. 

Photo on Foter.com (link for picture is at the bottom)

Though many may be saying that that is only two Government shutdowns, but the fact that they are so close together in a same year shows that the government is not cooperating as much as they should to get things done in the government.

Government Officials are Going with their Parties Choice rather than their Own choice

Another way that the government is putting parties over people is the way that they want to be the more superior party of the two. So when the time comes to vote on something that other party thinks is great, the other party will go with everything against what the other party goes against.

One example is during the Brett Kavanaugh hearing all of the Republicans supported him and because of the difference in views almost all of the Democrats voted against Brett Kavanaugh being put into the Supreme Court. In an article by the New York Times during the time that Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in most of the democrats voted against him because of the “national reckoning over sexual misconduct” and most of the Republicans have voted for Kavanaugh because if Kavanaugh was elected he would be  “ locking in a solid conservative majority on the court ”. The way this sounds is that the Politicians don’t care about what kind of people we elect in the White House they just have to make one party more superior than the other. That seems like its all that matters. 

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The legislative branch is doing more to try to get a majority of one party in office rather than thinking of what is best for the people of the United States.[/perfectpullquote]

Through the past few years the amount of trading off their political parties has shrunk and so the votes have gotten more tight and it has become much harder to get things past. Since 2010 the votes have gotten much more condense and have been more controversial than they have been in the  in the last 8 years.

One way that the last few statements are true are that in 2018 some of the more recent votes from the Legislative have been 51-49 votes. Compared to in 2010 the votes were 61-32 votes. More people were going with what they believe was right rather than going with what their political party was going to do and because of people unable to see past the party dividing lines making things way harder to get done because of the government officials thinking more about their party being more superior than the other one. Our country is not getting anything really important done, and making our country better.

The Solution is: Get rid of or Change Political Parties

How This would Benefit us

One way that changing the way Political Parties are that it would get rid of the rift that most people get with others just because they support a different political party. Changing Political Parties would also help by the 77% of people who say that they only vote for a certain party would not even think about what the other party would change or say.

If we change the way political parties work and make them less different from each other we would have people vote for the ideas that people have rather than they want to have a certain political party dominate the government.

How would things Change

Though almost virtually everyone disagrees on almost anything having to do with politics. Getting rid of political parties would most likely help remove one of those divides over which party is right about things. Though if we do get political parties gone there will still be people who want them. Most people these days think that the divide is too great and are getting sick of all of the fighting that is being done by politicians because they want to seem like they are very superior.

Also if we get rid of political parties we would not have parties coming together to take down the other party and they would try and work together to help better the country and create a better life for the citizens that live there.

Why people may still want Political parties

Many people may still want political parties because they don’t want change to happen or they like the way things are right now. But the truth is that things never stay the same for long and over time things will change for better or for worse even if you don’t want them to and it’s the same thing for political parties.

Photo by James Borland from the U.S. Air Force illustration (link is at the bottom)

Another reason may be that people are thinking that the economy may be better off having political parties. In an article by Moisés Naím he states that “ We need permanent organizations that earn political power and govern ”. Many people may want to keep political parties because they believe that they provide stability in the government. But how will it improve our government and economy if everyone is fighting over it and not getting anything done.

Another reason why people may still want to have political parties is that they may like the way the parties way and want to stick to a political party instead of thinking of the canidates as a whole. They also may still want a certain party to be superior than the other in 2018 the polls of number of democrats was 30%, Republicans 28% and the rest is the Independent Party. Many of these people may want to keep Political Parties so they can still have their beliefs but if we stay the way things are there is just going to be more and more talk about Political Parties and eventually we will all get tired of hearing how each of the parties is superior than the other. Rather than how they are going to improve the country.

Conclusion

Though political parties have been a part of our lives for a long time they are now recently bringing more harm than good. They are causing more government shutdowns, they are causing more politicians to think for the good of their party rather than the country, and they are creating more violence over things that shouldn’t be fought over. Political parties should not be such a big controversy as they are today. When America was first established the Founding Fathers didn’t want political parties for exactly these reasons. They are dividing the country in ways that they didn’t want them too when they created America.

Featured Image by DonkeyHotey from Flickr

Constitution photo by James Borland

White House photo by Foter.com